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Well, when I play with my regular team mates together, we mostly avoid killing the witch.
But if you absolutely need to, there are two ways:
Fire and kite: Unless the surroundings/terrain is flat wide area with no place to hide or climb, let one with a mid/long-range weapon shoot the witch and start running around IMMEDIATELY. While she's chasing the guy, ...

To give this question a test, I opened up a multiplayer session with a friend. We were using in-game chat, and approached what I can only imagine would be "earshot" of the Witch (basically as close as we could get without her tearing our faces off.) We then both proceeded to yell as loud as we could, for over a minute at differing volume levels, in an ...

It depends on the difficulty you are playing, but note that faster is not necessarily better.
If you are playing Easy, Normal or Advanced difficulties, then by all means the best thing to do is light him on fire with a Molotov cocktail or gas can and then get as far away from him as possible. Make sure you can get to an area where he can't hit you with ...

Molotovs are definitely your friend when it comes to Tanks. You should make sure he is ALWAYS on fire. They do quite a bit more damage than you'd realize.
From there, if you don't have any heavy weapons, your next best bet is an automatic shotgun. Run in, pump him with rounds, then run out. This is especially effective if somebody else has his ...

Regarding formations: the best advice is to "corner up" which really means "limit the size of the angle that you must attend to." A wall at your back is a flat corner :)
Again with formations: pick a portion of the available angle of attack and cover it. Leave the rest of the field of fire for your team to handle. Allow and expect your team to get your back ...

"Kite Like a Man - Kill
a tank only with damage from the
original Survivors."
It's an achievement you can get only in "The Passing".
On the finale, the survivors from the original Left 4 Dead are helping you with shooting infected. The point of this achievement is to have them kill the tank, and them only shooting him.

If you can sneak up behind the witch with a shotgun, one point-blank shot to the head will kill her. It's a dangerous game since you have to get so close, but it is definitely possible. With practice you will be able to do it consistently.
If that is not an option, then you should follow Arda Xi's advice.

When you are in the lobby menu, you can choose the character you want; just pick one other than Rochelle (or Zoey if you're doing a map with L4D1 characters). If your other three teammates have already selected the other male characters, you are SOL.
(Picture ripped off some YouTube L4D2 lobby video)
Better yet, stop caring.

The Tank is arguably the toughest special infected to play. Your team expects you to take down all four survivors on your own, which is next to impossible without help from your teammates. Ignore anyone that calls you a n00b after a failed Tank run. Learn from it and try different strategies next time.
The Boomer will be the biggest help to the Tank, ...

They are different in terms of reload time, however, they are not different in terms of damage done per hit. The differing reload times will make for an effective difference in DPS though. Melee weapons will one-shot all Common Infected on all difficulties. They will also one shot all Special Infected on all difficulties, except for the Chargers (2 hits), ...

You can melee a hunter mid-leap to cancel its attack and stun it. It requires some practice on the timing to get it perfect, but it's extremely effective, especially since the hunter is so loud before it pounces. Learn to identify the different sounds each infected make so you know what to prepare for.
After you stun it, you can deal with it however you ...

You can't cut the tongue with a melee weapon once you've been ensnared however you can cut the tongue while its coming at you. If you have a melee weapon, it is possible to cut the tongue just before it hits you. This tactic require timing and knowledge of the direction of the tongue. If you have a Chainsaw, timing and direction is usually not needed. If the ...

Don't spawn until the last possible moment or they'll hear you.
Here are some of my strategies:
Boomer - He's slow, so don't try chasing survivors. Get in front of them and spawn as they're coming around a corner, or drop from a higher place in between them and surprise 'em.
Smoker - I usually wait for a Boomer to attack and as soon as he explodes on them ...

It depends on what you mean by "modeled after real-life people".
If you mean visually, then yes! Valve usually models the face of their characters based on some real-life person (probably a hired model or actor, but I can't confirm this). From Left4Dead Wikia, here is a list of the face models for each character (as well as the voice actor):
...

This answer also works in L4D2, just it's the other way round.
Open this folder: %PROGRAMFILES%\Steam\SteamApps\common\left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\cfg\
Create a file autoexec.cfg with the following contents:
alias fps "firstperson;bind F7 tps"
alias tps "thirdpersonshoulder;bind F7 fps"
bind F7 tps
F7 will now toggle between first and over-the-shoulder ...

If a survivor is dead when the safe room door is closed, they will return with 50 permanent health on the next level.
If a survivor is incapacitated when the safe room door is closed, they will return with 30 temporary health (the same kind of health received when taking pills or adrenaline) and will no longer be incapacitated.
Therefore, it's always ...

Just to add to cowgod's great answer if you're in an open area don't even try to chase survivors, they'll easily keep their distance and shoot the crap out of you at the same time.
Also be sure to use cars, bins and forklifts when you can as it will cause instant incap.
Tip: In the Carnival campaign on map 4 if you're a tank, hit the "Test your might" game ...

It's probably because of the country you are buying from. I believe someone can gift you the regular version if they buy it in a country that allows it.
Alternatively, you can buy the low violence version and use the instructions found here to enable the gore:
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Skribble/left4dead2-australian-gore-fix--153748.phtml

Play with a team - Bots won't help you here. You need a team of people that stick together. Some players prefer playing with 1 bot on their team to spot/take care of special infected, but personally I believe the downsides of a bot outweigh this upside, as a coordinated team should have little issue hearing, locating and dealing with special infected. Use ...

The first rule about expert mode: more than anything else, avoid friendly fire AT ALL COSTS, especially if you're using a shotgun. In expert difficulty, each projectile can take 10hp away, and since a shotgun fires 8 (normal shotgun) to 10 (shotgun auto) buckshots, it can instantly incap one of your teammates.
Sometimes, playing with a bot in your team ...

Valve removed the vocalization commands to stop people spamming in multiplayer games, all that is left are the speech wheel that come up when you press z or x (using default controls).
Edit: This is the very hacky way of doing it through the radial commands which may or may not work.

In short: it quickly becomes tedious.
The AI is only suitable for Easy or Normal single player. Beating Advanced and Expert usually comes from team tactics as opposed to FPS skill, and tactics requires human cooperation. You'll find yourself constantly losing if you're using AI on those difficulties.
The AI has some other shortcomings. They are incapable ...

I can't give you a definite answer for comparisons between L4D1 and L4D2, but I have racked up hundreds of hours on both games and continue to play both daily. I'll give you my tips for each SI class, and perhaps it'll help you a bit.
Hunter
The obvious:
25 damage pounce is of course, wonderful. Some people are pretty good at bashing you out of the air, ...

If you mean a dead stop (melee as he's pouncing), then there is a trick: Hunter's box model (the wire-frame model responsible for hit-testing) is way before his rendered body.
So if you want to dead stop him you should time your melee just before it gets to you.
Whether the melee connects depends also on your ping to the server. Remember, hit-testing takes ...